


Art Nouveau

by brinnanza



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Body Paint, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:27:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Easy for you to say,” grumbles McKay. “You’re not the one that has to get naked for literally peanuts.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art Nouveau

**Author's Note:**

> This is a "drabble" response to number 19 [here](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/123330311721/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you), "The paint's supposed to go _where_?"
> 
> Thanks to Aadarshinah for the beta read!

There’s an uncomfortable, pinched look on Sheppard’s face, but it’s nothing compared to the sudden flutter in the pit of McKay’s stomach and the frankly alarming palpitations in his heart. ”And you can’t--” McKay swallows, flaps a hand vaguely in Sheppard’s direction, “I don’t know, get someone else to do it?”

Sheppard lets out a sigh and drops the container of dark blue ink and the paintbrush onto the table near his elbow. “Nope,” he says faux-brightly. “Has to be us. The Carans were rather--” A pause, a wince. “-- _specific_ about that point.”

It’s McKay’s turn to wince. He wishes, not for the first time and certainly far from the last, that he’d been present for these… negotiations. It is the height of unfairness that he’d been ejected from the talks to begin with. The Carans _were_ , generally speaking, backwards farm people with nothing in the way of valuable technology, and, in his defense, that remark had been meant for Sheppard’s ears only. It couldn’t really be considered his fault that the lead negotiator, a tall, severe-looking woman with dark hair and (apparently) bat ears, had overheard and taken offense. McKay had been taken to a small, sparsely-furnished hut that was usually intended, the large, well-toned Caran had told him with a completely unnecessary amount of glee, for impertinent children who needed a timeout.

Sheppard pinches the bridge of his nose and waves a hand at McKay. “Can we just get this over with?” he says wearily.

“Easy for you to say,” grumbles McKay. “You’re not the one that has to get naked for literally peanuts.”

“They’re not peanuts, McKay. They’re just nuts.”

“Close enough,” McKay mutters because that’s _so_ not the point. His hands go to his shirt collar, and then he stops, dropping them. “Are you sure this is really necessary?” 

One would think McKay would be used to this sort of thing by now, wacky trust rituals,arcane punishments, and the like. (At least this one isn’t painful--he’d had to spend four hours in the _stocks_ on M5X-68P2 before Sheppard and Teyla could talk their way through excusing McKay’s one-track technology-focused behavior.)

Except it’s usually Teyla and Ronon that volunteer for the whole body paint deal, to nearly everyone’s satisfaction. It comes up surprisingly often and McKay, for one, will never stop being fascinated by dark swirls painted on the broad expanse of Ronon’s back, shifting with the interplay of his muscles or tiny, intricate patterns painstakingly inked across Teyla’s throat, arcing up over her face and into her hairline.

McKay shakes his head to clear the image. “I mean, do we really need these nuts? People are allergic to nuts, after all. I mean, I’m not, fortunately, which is surprising since I’ve got so many other--” He breaks off at Sheppard’s quelling look. “Yes, alright. Just--really?”

Sheppard’s expression softens, just a fraction. “Do you think I would be here if it wasn’t necessary?”

“I guess not,” McKay concedes, frowning. He lets out a huff of air, then starts with the shirt buttons again. Sheppard is still looking at him, an impatient look on his face. “Could you--?” McKay says, making a little circular motion with a finger.

Sheppard raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Really, McKay?” And okay, yes, they’ve been on overnights on more planets than McKay can count and the locker room showers off of the Gateroom are just a series of overhead spigots in an otherwise empty room, so it’s not as if they haven’t seen each other in various states of undress before. Still, something about this -- the small room, Sheppard’s attention, the knowledge of what they’re about to do -- feels… intimate in a way that brings a warm, pink blush to Mckay’s cheeks.

He raises both eyebrows at Sheppard expectantly. “Whatever, McKay,” Sheppard says with a sigh, and he obligingly turns his back.

McKay strips out of his clothes with a military efficiency he didn’t know he possessed and arranges himself on the hut’s low bed, or the pile of thick-knit blankets and furs that passes for one anyway. “Okay,” he calls out when he’s settled on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms. “I’m, uh, ready I guess.”

Sheppard turns back around, and something unreadable passes over his face before he can hide it. He turns his head, and snatches the ink bottle and paintbrush off of the table. When McKay can see his face again, the implacable mask is back like it hadn’t been disturbed.

He kneels down beside McKay and takes the top off of the bottle, setting it down beside him. “Just hold still, okay?” Sheppard says, his voice softer than McKay’d been expecting.

McKay doesn’t answer. He’s very, very aware of how close Sheppard is, closer still when Sheppard dips his brush in the ink and then leans over him to begin drawing. The ink is cool on his back, a welcome contrast to the air in the hut, thick and stuffy, like trying to breathe under a heavy blanket. The brush tickles a little as Sheppard paints in loops and swirls, but it’s suddenly impossible to move, the weight of something big and unsaid in the air between them. Sheppard puts a hand on McKay’s shoulder blade to steady himself as he drags the paintbrush over McKay’s lower back, over his ass, down one thigh, and McKay can’t help the goosebumps that flare across his skin in its wake.

He wonders if this is what it’s like when Ronon and Teyla do this--if Ronon is distracted by the lean lines of Teyla’s legs, the hollow of her throat. If Ronon can’t suppress a shiver as Teyla traces a line over his hip.

McKay needs to move, to speak, to say something to break this endless moment, silent save for the sound of Sheppard’s breathing, heavier than it should be for this simple act. Except it isn’t simple, not by a longshot, not with all this bare skin, Sheppard’s hand warm on his back, and a crackle of something like electricity in the scant space between Sheppard’s knees and McKay’s side. Not with so many years between them, unspoken words and reasons that always seem good enough at the time but _here, now_ are just excuses.

He realizes he’s holding his breath.

He forces himself to take a slow, steadying breath. He just needs to get ahold of himself (and oh, what a delicious satisfaction that would be, he thinks, resisting the urge to shift his hips against the blanket for some friction), calm down so they can just get this over with, finish the damn trade deal, and get back to comfortable distance and meaningless arguments and the imperfect and unwanted but necessary status quo.

Then Sheppard’s hand slides down, his long fingers curling around McKay’s upper thigh while he paints a looping swirl around McKay’s calf. McKay can’t take it anymore, can’t lie still and feign disinterest while every part of him is breathless with screaming _more more more_.

“John,” he manages, his voice barely a whisper.

And then Sheppard is on him, shoving him onto his back and covering his body with his own. Sheppard’s clothes are rough against McKay’s flushed, over-sensitive skin, but he doesn’t care. He shoves a hand into Sheppard’s hair and crashes their mouths together. His whole body, curled so tight with wanting, unravels at once, humming with the rightness of this.

Sheppard’s hands are everywhere, stroking up his side, curving over his ass, cradling the back of his head and cupping his face. McKay just tries to keep up, yanking Sheppard’s shirt out of his trousers with one hand and scrabbling with his belt with the other. He needs skin, the warm press of Sheppard’s skin against him right now.

There’s blue everywhere, smeared all over McKay’s back, covering Sheppard’s hands, seeping into the pile of blankets where Sheppard knocked over the bottle in his haste. There’s a smudged blue thumbprint on Sheppard’s collarbone, and McKay feels the sudden, unquenchable urge to taste it. (The ink is non-toxic, McKay is sure--Sheppard knows him well enough to ask after its ingredients before brushing it onto McKay).

He touches and tastes and swallows down the needy keening sounds Sheppard makes against his lips. McKay’s whole world shrinks to this moment, every nerve on fire and shouting _finally finally finally_.

When they finally roll apart, sweaty and breathless and streaked with blue, Sheppard huffs out a laugh and says, “Now I’m gonna have to start all over.” He turns his head to smirk at McKay, a wicked gleam in his eye.

“You’re gonna have to give me a few minutes,” McKay pants, grinning broadly. “I’m not as young as I used to be.” He rolls onto his side and presses a soft, open-mouthed kiss to Sheppard’s mouth, just because he can.

Sheppard rolls toward him, his arms going around McKay’s waist, and they spend a long moment kissing lazily, their legs tangling together. Then Sheppard pulls back, presses his forehead against McKay’s for a moment, then disentangles himself from the blankets.

McKay lies on his side and watches Sheppard pull his clothes back on. The cuff of his shirt sleeve is stained dark blue where it had been hastily thrown into a puddle of ink, and there’s a blue handprint on the thigh of his trousers. McKay flushes an embarrassed scarlett--between the ruined blankets, the smeared designs on McKay’s skin, and the messy, rumpled state of Sheppard’s hair, there’s no way the others won’t know what they’ve been doing.

McKay starts to get up. “Sheppard--”

Sheppard digs the paintbrush out from under a blanket, dips it into the puddle of ink drying on the floor, and pushes McKay back down. “Don’t,” he says, voice a little rough. “Let’s finish this.”

McKay settles back down and lets Sheppard redraw the swirls and arcs. He’s quiet for a long time. McKay tries to turn his head around enough to see Sheppard’s face and gets a glimpse--cool and emotionless, brows knitted in concentration--before the strain in his neck is too much and he has to turn away again.

He sighs and drops his face into his arms. He can just picture the rationalizing and excuses going through Sheppard’s mind, could see it even in that brief glance in the tense set of Sheppard’s shoulders.

“Can we not do this please?” McKay says tiredly, surprising Sheppard enough that he pauses.

“Do what?” Sheppard’s voice is the carefully neutral tone he uses when he wants to pretend everything is fine but is actually far from it. He resumes drawing.

“Whatever repressive faux macho crap you’re telling yourself to convince yourself that this was a mistake and can’t happen again.” McKay reaches around to grab Sheppard’s wrist, then rolls onto his side to meet his eyes. “I am going to need to shower for like a week to get all this stuff off, and I fully expect you to be there to assist.” He lifts his chin, daring Sheppard to complain.

He doesn’t. Instead, a slow smile spreads across Sheppard’s face and his shoulders relax. “Okay,” he says simply.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

They grin at each other dopily for a moment, and then McKay lets go of Sheppard’s wrist and settles back onto his stomach. Sheppard finishes painting in what surely must be a record amount of time, and then the two of them make their way out of the hut and back into the bright sunlight of the planet.

Sheppard’s sloppy, smeared lines are apparently good enough for the Carans, though they do garner a few raised eyebrows and a loud gaffaw from Ronon that he turns into an unconvincing cough. Later, after he’s been allowed to put his clothes back on and the trade negotiations have concluded, McKay thinks he sees Teyla surreptitiously slip what looks like a chocolate bar to a triumphant-looking Ronon, but his mind is elsewhere, already on thoughts of home, his expansive bathtub, and a very naked John Sheppard.

Maybe the next time there’s a trust ritual involving body paint, he’ll volunteer.

 

END


End file.
